


It's the season of eyes meeting over the noise

by queenklu



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Mentions of PTSD, Mentions of homelessness, Oranges, Subways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 22:55:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17292959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenklu/pseuds/queenklu
Summary: Based on this Christmas prompt on a post by diegoalvesisgod"1: We’re stuck on a train, probably missing the Christmas dinner anyway, and you have a whole bag of food and you’ve just decided to share it with me."





	It's the season of eyes meeting over the noise

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Vienna Teng's song 'Atheist Christmas Carol.'
> 
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> _It's the season of eyes meeting over the noise_  
>  _And holding fast with sharp realization_

The train rocked gently under his body, steady thumping of the rails and soft screeching as they shifted around corners. He’d always found comfort in trains, for all that they sometimes featured in his nightmares. He often had to close his eyes going in, stepping out. But inside a train--

It was warm. It was movement. It was easy exits and guarded windows. It was safe.

Bucky couldn’t quite sleep, but some days it was close as he ever got.

This late the train car was almost empty, just an old man snoring drunkenly in the front and a young man bundled up with scarves and groceries, still shaking off the snow--he must have booked it through the terminal to have snowflakes clinging to him. Bucky watched through his eyelashes as the hat came off, fluffing up the blonde hair beneath it. He had a kind face, Bucky thought, too open, smiling softly at nothing even though his pant hems were soaked with slush. Skinny. Bucky caught himself idly hoping those groceries would fatten him up some, maybe until he was less scarf than person.

“Brrr,” the guys said, to no one. Then flicked his gaze to Bucky, caught out. His nose and cheeks were pink with cold. “Pretty chilly outside.”

Bucky didn’t answer. _Tourist._ Or at the very least, naive as shit.

“You going to a holiday party too?”

 _Jesus Christ._ Bucky fought the urge to stare down at himself, and then did--fuck. He’d forgotten Old Man Russell had forced this knitted monstrocity on him, someone’s discarded holiday project which had skipped over hipster-ugly entirely and wound up in the dumpster on 12th. He wouldn’t have kept wearing it except it was warm--and the dirt muted some of the bright colors that made him feel like an easy target. The most this guy could probably see under Bucky’s beat up jacket was the bright red star smack dab in the middle, none of the dough-faced cherubs.

Bucky shook his head and turned his face away. Sooner or later the kid was going to notice the grime crusted under Bucky’s nails, or the grease in his too-long hair tucked under his ballcap. The not-for-fashion holes in his clothes. The sag in one sleeve where his arm used to be.

The train gave a sharp, shuddering shriek as the brakes came on--not hard enough for a crash, not slow enough for a predetermined stop. Bucky braced his good shoulder against the wall as they juddered to a halt, and one orange tumbled out of Blondie’s bag to thump across the floor.

The lights went out.

“Shit,” Blondie said.

The drunk guy only snored louder.

After too many seconds--Bucky felt sweat pricking under his sweater, gut a knot of hot iron, but he held himself still, still, still--the emergency lights flickered on, bathing the car in silvery grey light.

 _“Ladies and gentlemen, we appear to have a slight delay,”_ rang over the intercom, a barely intelligible mash of sound, and then a string of nonsensical gibberish.

“Well,” Blondie sighed, and started depositing his bags on the seats next to him, rather than balancing them on his lap. He pulled one of his scarves completely off, for some reason, leaving the other two draped loosely around his graceful neck.

 _Graceful, huh,_ Bucky thought to himself, and shut his eyes for a bit.

When he opened them, the guy was a lot closer, and holding the orange.

Bucky jolted, like a fucking idiot, and Blondie splayed his hands as well as he could while holding something the size of a, well, orange. “Sorry,” he said, taking a full step back before he sat down again--not in the same seat as before, but not too close, either. Maybe four seats away. Bucky forced himself not to move. The exit was at his back--two steps and he’d be gone.

“Man, I love oranges,” the guy said, like that was a normal human-being-like statement to make. But what the hell did Bucky know anymore. Maybe it was. “Any other fruit fell on a subway floor, I’d write it off. But oranges? They’ve got this thick skin to keep all the germs out, and then it’s full of vitamin C, so even if you do get germs it’s basically cancelled out!”

Bucky watched his narrow fingers make quick work of the peel, even as his mouth spouted absolute nonsense. “Bananas,” he said.

The guy looked at him. He had bright blue eyes. “What?”

“Any other fruit,” Bucky repeated. “Thick skin.”

“Damn, you got me there.” He grinned.

It made Bucky want to smile too, but he was out of practice. “Watermelon.”

That got an actual laugh, eye-crinkling, unselfconscious in a way that felt like laces pulled snug around a swollen ankle. “God, I’m glad Christmas watermelons aren’t a thing, I’d hate to be lugging one of those around.” He pried the orange apart, residue glimmering on his fingertips, and (almost) casually offered half to Bucky. “You want some?”

What would it cost him, Bucky wondered. Would it be a lecture on how being homeless was really his fault? Would it be a sermon about Jesus’s ever-empty promises of love? Or a demand for something more immediate, and physical. They were practically alone.

Bucky shook his head, even as his stomach ached. He could smell the citrus over the subway grime.

“Oh. Hang on, I’m an idiot,” the guy said suddenly, and stood--but shifted his whole body away first, clearly telegraphing that he was moving away from Bucky, not toward. “Here,” he said, and fished out another orange, almost half-again as big. “You take this one, eat it whenever you want--not when some chatty stranger decides he wants a snack. I have a high metabolism,” he added, and somehow in all the talking, he managed to press the spare orange into Bucky’s hand without ever fully facing him, leaving all the exits free, “I forget sometimes that not everyone needs to eat as much as I do.”

He smiled a little shyly, and went back to sit down exactly as far away as before, stuffing another wide orange slice into his mouth.

Bucky held the orange in his palm, felt the weight of it, the stretch against his fingers. “What’s your name,” he heard himself ask, voice rough with disuse.

The guy put his wrist to his mouth, too eager to reply to wait until he’d finished chewing. “Mmf--Steve.”

Bucky had known a lot of Steves--two in Iraq, five in Afghanistan, one who worked at the VA clinic when Bucky could make himself go--but the Steve that sprung immediately to mind was a scrawny kid with with ears like Dumbo and limbs like living twigs. Christ, he hadn’t thought of that kid in years, decades maybe; the too-hot summers they’d spent together getting into ten kinds of trouble, sleepless sleepovers and giggling until Steve started to wheeze in a way that made his Ma fuss over him. _Damn_ , Bucky thought, vision blurring as he remembered the dusty feeling of being filled up by a laugh, _whatever happened to those kids._

“What’s your name?”

Well, shit. He’d only asked in order to say thank you properly for the orange, he hadn’t actually meant--the train lights gave a promising flicker, then went even dimmer than before. Bucky held on a little tighter, not enough to squish, just enough to know he had something in his hand, and it was real, and this was not a nightmare. Or if it was a nightmare, so far it was pretty tame.

He lifted his head. Made the conscious decision not to be scared, to look Steve right in the eyes. “James,” he said, then spurred on by bravery or the unconscious tic to finish, “Buchanan Barnes.”

Steve stared. “Jesus,” he breathed, and then even softer: “Bucky.”

Here was the nightmare. Here was the heat, and the kick, and the fall.

“Do you remember me?” Steve asked into the sudden silence. Even the drunk’s snores felt far away. “I was--well, I wish I could say I was a lot smaller then, but--” He grimaced a little, gesturing at himself. Like there wasn’t meat on his bones or color in his cheeks. Christ, some days Bucky had thought his childhood friend had ‘moved away’ the same way their dog had ‘gone to live on a farm.’

“Fuck,” Bucky said. And somehow that whooshed out a laugh from Steve’s lungs, and he didn’t even sound--there was none of that whistle in the back that Bucky had learned to listen for.

“It’s a Christmas miracle, huh? Holy shit,” Steve laughed, pressing his hand to his own forehead. “God, Buck, I thought--wow. You look--”

It was Bucky’s turn to grimace. _Homeless,_ he thought, pulse kicked into his throat, _I look homeless because I am_ , but Steve just grinned at him, wide and dopey.

“It’s real good to see you,” Steve settled on, and somehow it didn’t even sound like a cop-out. It just sounded true. Steve ducked his head, hand raking through his hair. “Man. It sounds crazy but I was just thinking about you the other day. Or, well. A lot, I guess. Recently. Jesus, I really am crazy. I only moved back to the city last year and--I don’t know why, but I had a feeling I should keep an eye out for you. Even though, like, what’s it been, twenty years?”

“Nineteen,” Bucky said too fast, feeling like the air was being sucked out of his lungs. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant. The orange was still in his palm, and as long as he held it, something told him that meant this was real. And not a dream.

“Nineteen,” Steve repeated, ducking his chin into one of his scarves like that would hide the pink in his cheeks. “Right.”

Bucky wanted to ask--nothing. He didn’t want to know what Steve had been up to, because Steve would only want to know the same, and. And. He didn’t want to know where Steve was going, because it would be away from here. He didn’t want to ask ‘Do you remember--’ because he was afraid of the answer, of what he’d lost and forgotten of himself.

He just wanted Steve to smile at him again. Like they were kids. Like they weren’t.

“It’s good to see you, Steve,” Bucky managed, too soft.

The lights flickered: worse, then brighten than before. A jolt, rocking Steve in his sideways seat. An engine turning over.

 _"Ladies and gentlemen,”_ the speaker mumbled, and the train roared to life.

They rolled, slow at first, then gaining, and Bucky felt like they were leaving their ghosts behind--the kids they used to be, imprinted on the tracks. The bell would chime, the automated voice would speak, and Steve would disappear into the crowd with all his groceries, and Bucky would eat his orange.

He saw the panic building on Steve’s face as though their thoughts were joined. _It’s okay,_ Bucky wanted to tell him, press into his skin, _this is New York._

“It’s Christmas,” Steve said, almost fiercely, a shield against a strike. He lifted his eyes and looked at Bucky, looked and looked and _looked,_ and saw. “I was going to do some baking. Want to lend a hand?”

He set his chin, and it was so familiar Bucky saw him in triplicate a moment: at six and ten and twenty-nine all at once, bracing for a fight. Bucky had seen that chin bruised. Bloody. He'd never seen it give in.

He hoped. He hoped he never would.

“I only have the one,” Bucky said, lifting his left shoulder in a shrug.

Steve’s eyes sparkled with triumph, and joy. _And comfort,_ Bucky’s mind supplied, deliriously laughing, _comfort and joy._

“I’ll take it,” Steve said. And smiled.

The bell chimed. The voice spoke. And this time, when Bucky got off the train, he didn’t want to close his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> [I can be found at tumblr until the end of days.](http://queenklu.tumblr.com/)


End file.
